


in shadowed places

by magisterequitum



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 18:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/pseuds/magisterequitum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>that other time, he'd said. that time they don't speak of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in shadowed places

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for all aired episodes. Speculation for the summer finale.

Once it will nearly happen like this.

Nearly will be the important key part because it doesn't happen, not all the way, and later they will ignore it, sweep it under the proverbial rug to never be mentioned again, until it is, until he will bring it out and she will lie and they will try and ignore it again. It means nothing, they will say. Only it means everything. They will be like a cassette tape whose ribbon has been stretched out, a collection of plays and pauses and fast forwards with a broken rewind button.

It will happen in her place. The second time that he will have ever come there. It will be late. They will both be tired, clothes wrinkled from the long day. Her hair will droop where she'd curled it that morning. His tie will crinkle from its former pristine glory. Their breathes will both taste of the bottle of wine they'd drained at dinner in celebration of his first client after being named partner.

Donna will kiss him first, but Harvey will touch first, his hand curving over her hip, fingers tightening in the fabric of her dress and over her hipbone as his lips press harder when hers brush his. Later she will replay it all over again, the way he'd felt against her, the sureness in the way he'd kissed her, pulled her against him, the taste of wine and the mint he'd snagged on the way out of the restaurant. She will remember it mostly because it's him. How could she not? It will also be the first time she's seen him this alive since his father's death.

She will take him in, hold him for that long pause that stretches forward and forward till she can see where this will go, her bed, tomorrow morning, and then she will pull back.

Harvey's eyes will blink, confusion filling the lines of his face.

The pause will snap and the possibility closes shut as she says, "I love you."

And then she will say, "No." and step back, away.

That is how it will nearly happen.

 

-

 

It will really happen like this.

Years later and somehow they will have bypassed the falling in love stage. She will have buried it deep inside her, that moment so long ago, tucked it away back in the space between her ribcage and skin, let it sit there as something that simply exists. Because that is what they will be: two people that simply exist within and around one another. Comfortable, they will operate because they fill in the spaces where the other is lacking.

Donna will not have lied to Rachel when she said it eventually goes away. Not in her saying. But she will have lied about the person. A lie of omission, a white lie, because maybe it will have manifested into something that is beyond that. Maybe it will be something that just cannot be qualified or explained in a courtroom or a fake trial.

It will not matter though.

What will matter is that things will be bad. The firm will have dangerously slipped close to FUBAR’d zone, as she will like to whisper to Mike. She will be in a cubicle that barely fits any of her belongings. Harvey will be squished into a office that makes him look either too small or too large, dependant upon the tilt of head or who’s doing the thinking. Jessica will be small too, seething, but small in an office that is not hers.

Harvey will knock on her door, bang on it more likely, and his breath will smell of liquor when she opens her door and catches him as he practically falls into her. Only he will smell of something like whiskey this time instead of the wine. It will not stop her from taking that memory out of her secret place where she’d tucked it away.

“Everything,” he will try to say, throat working, and he’s never been so good with the emotional talking, neither one of them, but he will try. “Everything’s messed up.”

Donna will not have to ask. She will fill in the _‘and it’s because of me’_.

Her fingers will spasm against the fabric of his jacket as she stares at him straight on. She will offer a brave smile that does not reach her eyes. “You still have me.”

Anger will still burn inside her, even as she pulls him further into her, even as she slips her arms over his shoulders and around his neck, because he fucked up, he fucked up back with her, and she will not be over it. But she will put it aside for now. She will know better than to push when he’s close to shattering into a million pieces. Now she will take care of him.

“Donna,” he will say to her neck, lips brushing against her skin.

She will not say _‘I love you’_.

Donna will not say it when they are in her bed, her fingers holding tight to his shoulders as he slides a finger into her, thumb circling her clit. She will not say it even when he brings her close and then backs off, only to press closer and replace his fingers with his dick. Not when he will bring her right leg over his hip to get a better angle. Or when she will bite him for daring to slow down.

She will say it after she’s breathed out her release with a cut off moan, and he’s fallen onto her with his face in her hair that’s sweaty and tangled on her pillow.

Harvey will stir against her after several beats of time. He will turn so that he can talk and she can hear, speak lowly to the side of her jaw, “I’m sorry.”

Donna will catch the sheet between her toes where it’s bunched down at the footboard. She will exhale and turn her head to see him from an angle, only half of his shadowed face. Then, she will say, “I love you.”


End file.
